Three very different girls are all drawn to a secret place deep in the woods. There they discover a portal to another world through which strange and wondrous animals have emerged, searching desperately for the magic that will keep them alive. The animals are peaceful and good, but what follows them through the portal is pure evil. Emily, Adriane, and Kara have been chosen by magical beings called Fairimentals to protect the magical animals, though they don’t know why. To save them and their world, the three girls must begin a quest to find the lost home of legendary magic, Avalon…or to perish trying.

I bought the omnibus edition of the first three books in the Avalon: Web of Magic, so I’ll be reviewing the three books together.

I think I would’ve enjoyed these books a lot better when I was younger and that I would’ve definitely continued the series. The worldbuilding is fun and the animals are adorable, but the plot itself is kind of flat. The books are already quite short, but barely anything happens in the first two books. I guess I wouldn’t have had this problem if I actually liked the characters. Emily and Ariadne are okay (though I don’t care about them), but Kara is just plain annoying. She is your typical mean girl and in the first three books there doesn’t seem to be much else to her. I don’t think she really grew that much, but then again none of the characters did. Of course there are more books (I think there are about twelve books in total), but in my opinion there should already be more character development at this point. I also think that a reader (me, hi! *waves*) shouldn’t care more about a minor character that doesn’t even talk because he’s a purple bear-like thing (or at least he’s described as bear-like) than about the main characters.

The writing style was okay, but it really annoyed me that there were random exclamation points! They really didn’t make any sense! And they just sounded weird! But apart from that there was nothing wrong with it. Nothing special, but nothing mind-blowing either.

The drawings really added to the story and made it feel more magical. I liked the element of friendship and how it’s all about saving the animals. Also almost all of the magical creatures were made up by the author which was really original.

The second (All That Glitters) is my least favourite. It’s from Kara’s POV (and we’ve already established how I feel about her). I constantly rolled my eyes at her thoughts (I really thought she would’ve changed at least a little bit since the first book) and especially in this one I felt like nothing was happening. In the third one there’s a lot more action, but just not enough to make me want to continue this series.

All in all I would’ve enjoyed this when I was younger (magic, magical animals, different worlds, pretty drawings!). Have you read this? Do you agree with me? Let me know in the comments!